Press Release

Uruzgan PRT Distributes Legal Awareness Materials

Provincial Reconstruction Teams distribute 12,000 sets of legal awareness comic books

Kabul, Afghanistan | Monday, September 29, 2008

Photo: USAID/Afghanistan

The Dutch provincial reconstruction team in Uruzgan delivered 12,000 rule of law comic book sets for distribution to schoolchildren throughout the province.

characters from a legal awareness comic book

Photo: USAID/Afghanistan

The characters in the rule of law comic book sets—young Yassin and his uncle, Kaka Raouf—help raise legal awareness among young Afghans.

Working together to improve the rule of law in Afghanistan, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Dutch Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Uruzgan province coordinated the delivery of 12,000 sets of comic books with legal awareness messages to elementary schools throughout the province.

On September 14, 2008, the Dutch PRT’s rule of law unit delivered 12,000 sets of comic books designed and printed by USAID’s rule of law project to Uruzgan’s provincial Ministry of Education (MoE) office. The MoE is distributing the sets to elementary schools throughout the provincial capital, Tirin Kot, as well as in Chora and Deh Rawod districts.

This set of comic books includes six comics that address basic legal rights and women’s rights issues in an easy to understand format. The characters—the young boy Yassin and his uncle, Kaka Rawoof—are well known by Afghan children and have received much positive feedback from children and from organizations like the Dutch PRT, which use the books as part of their own justice-sector development activities.

The Uruzgan comic book distribution campaign was modeled on a similar campaign conducted in Kandahar province in December 2007 with the Canadian military, which distributed 75,000 comic book sets to every elementary school in the province.

In February 2008, the local PRT radio station in Tirin Kot began broadcasting rule of law radio dramas, spots, and quiz shows, which explain the constitution and the role of the justice sector in Afghanistan. Radio Director Ali Mohammad Khoshal said at the time that he had never received so much positive feedback from his listeners as when he broadcast the rule of law radio programs.

Learn more: Democracy & Governance | Provincial Reconstruction Teams | About this activity

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